Seriously, Norman!, page 17
“What? We don’t even live in Pennsylvania.”
“What of it? ‘Pennsylvania’ is a wonderful word. You have read your Ps?”
“Yes.”
“What about your Qs? Taking a squint at the calendar here, I would say you should be done with your Qs by now, hmm?”
“Um.”
“Yes?”
“I haven’t read my Qs,” said Norman, resting his cheek on his fist. “I’ve been meaning to, but I guess I’ve been distracted.”
“In other words, you’ve minded your Ps, but not your Qs.”
“I suppose so. I mean, I suppose not.”
“Never mind. As a matter of fact, I have been remiss in my duties and have nothing planned for us today, so what better way to pass the time than to sip hot chocolate and coffee and read our Qs? Here.” Balthazar rose from his chair to fetch and place in Norman’s lap the enormous dictionary.
“Ooof,” said Norman.
“Yes, we’ve done the Os. Now the Qs. Just read a sampling to me.”
Norman heaved the pages over slowly until he reached the Qs, then cleared his throat.
He read, “‘Quack, verb, to make the sound of a duck.’”
“Very, very nice. An onomatopoeic word and one of the best. A word that means as it sounds. Quack. Cast your eyes farther down and see if English-speaking humanity has made any more of this word.”
“‘Quack, noun, doctor.’ ‘Quackster, noun, a fraud,’” said Norman. “Also, ‘quackish.’”
“Now we’re really getting somewhere. Quackster, excellent. I’m curious to know why the sound of a duck has implied to our ears untruthfulness. Why not, say, the sound of a cow? Why ‘quack’ and not ‘moo’? Let us shelve this inquiry for the time being. Go on.”
“‘Quadrumvirate, noun, a foursome, a group of four men.’ Hey, that could be Leonard, Anna, Emma, and me! Except that none of us are men.”
“No matter. You may rest assured that, in this case, ‘men’ means all of humanity. The four of you make a perfect quadrumvirate. Did I mention that the letter Q is one of my favorites? The Romans were fond of it as well.”
“‘Quaestor, noun, a Roman official in finance.’”
“You see?”
Norman took a long swallow of hot chocolate.
“Hey, I like this one: ‘quaff, verb, to drink deeply,’ or ‘quaff, noun, a long drink.’”
“Splendid suggestion,” said Balthazar. He quaffed.
Norman quaffed.
“Ouch!”
“Stick to the Qs, please.”
“I mean, ‘Ouch, I burned my tongue.’ Okay, ‘quagmire, noun, soft ground, a swamp.’”
“Let us avoid them. Here, let me browse a bit,” he said, standing and lifting the heavy tome from Norman. “You quaff your cocoa.”
Mr. B. read with the dictionary cradled in his left arm.
“Ah, here is a favorite of mine. ‘Quirk, noun, a groove separating bits of molding in carpentry.’ Or, ‘a peculiarity, an odd trait or twist.’ Again, like ‘quack,’ here is a word that began its life describing one thing and now describes another, from the particular to the general. In fact, our English language is full of funny little quirks. Scanning farther, we come to someone of your Scandinavian heritage. Quisling. Poor man, his name now lives ever on as synonymous with ‘traitor.’ One thing I’m sure you will never be, my dear Norman: a quisling quack.”
Norman smiled and quaffed.
Mr. B. continued, “And here’s one we all know and love. ‘Queen, noun, loosely defined as the king’s better half.’”
Norman quaffed and dreamed.
Alfred the Great, with head bowed, knelt on one knee before a woman. She looked tall, even though she was sitting down. Her long, curling red hair cascaded over her shoulders, its mellow scent of chilly mountain streams diffusing in the air. Her diaphanous gown shimmered over bare feet. Gazing at Alfred the Great, she said, “Well, Alfred?”
Alfred, summoning all of his great, medium-great, and super-great powers, said, “Princess Theodosia”—for this was her name—“will you be my queen?”
Princess Theodosia parted her lips and—
“Norman. Norman, you seem to have dozed off. The lesson is concluded,” and Balthazar Birdsong closed the great book with a thump.
* * *
Sitting at the kitchen table that afternoon, Norman continued his studies in the dictionary, chin solidly in both palms.
His mother floated past him, lifted the hot glass carafe from its parking spot in the coffee machine, and poured the odiferous brew into her pink mug. Returning to the doorway, she paused behind Norman’s chair and said, “Watchadoin’?”
“Reading the dictionary,” said Norman.
“I wonder if you shouldn’t be playing video games or looking at the Innernets or listening to your eye-pot or something, like other boys.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“All right, dear,” she said and, with a slurp of coffee, scuffed out of the room.
Norman read.
roupy adj : hoarse
Norman cleared his throat and read on.
rouse vb : to stir up
roustabout n : a handyman
“Nice word,” said Norman quietly to himself.
route n : the way to go
routine n : a regular course of things
roux n : a flour and butter mixture used to thicken soups and sauces
rove vb : to roam or ramble
rover n : a wanderer, a pirate
“I thought it was just a dog’s name.”
row n : a quarrel
row vb : to move using oars
row n : a line of things
rowboat n : a boat for rowing
“Duh.”
rowdy, rowdyish adj : rough, noisy
rowel n : a little spiked wheel on the end of a spur
rowen n : the second growth, aftermath
royal adj : of or about kings and queens; magnificent, grand
Norman leaned back in his chair and said, “Of course, Royal Wedding.”
royal wedding
Ever since they all were small, a routine had developed between the twins and Norman, in which they would meet in the Normann living room, once or twice a month, for a movie night. Besides featuring a film, these evenings included plenty of buttered popcorn and one tall mug each of root-beer float. Leonard joined the routine when he became Norman’s official best friend at school, sometime during the third grade. After the movie was shown, it was discussed. For instance:
Its Merits: “Good scary bits”—Anna
Its Faults: “Boring fight scene. I mean, how many lives is this guy supposed to have?”—Emma
The Acting: “Lousy—all she ever did was scream”—Leonard
The Plot: “I didn’t get it when they stole the parrot—why’d they do that?”—Norman
And so forth. Sometimes these discussions took place during the movie, of course, and sometimes the discussion had no bearing whatsoever on the movie they were watching.
Such was the case one night, during the viewing of Royal Wedding, when Anna and Emma expounded at length upon a particularly difficult social situation—this was in the fourth grade—involving Chastity Ziegenhals, a half-eaten tuna melt, and Benjamin Franklin’s famous experiment with the kite, the key, and the lightning storm.
Ever afterward Royal Wedding had become the code words for calling together a gathering of the foursome—or Quadrumvirate, as Norman now liked to say—during which, as the film played, matters of special difficulty or urgency could be addressed and discussed by all.
* * *
Norma Normann chugged into the kitchen, bearing down on the coffee machine.
“Mom,” said Norman, “I think you and Dad need a night out. Dad’s been traveling so much, you hardly ever get a chance to see each other, you know, just to be together by yourselves.”
“Why, Norman, what a nice idea. And so, so thoughtful,” she said, stopping to put a hand on Norman’s shoulder and her cheek to his.
“Right, Mom. How about tonight?”
And so it was arranged, the great call going out: “Royal Wedding, tonight at seven-thirty.”
* * *
“The stove’s off and I’ve put the big pot in the sink to soak,” said Norman, standing at the front door, speaking to his mother, who waited on the walk for Norman’s father to bring the car around from the alley, the chilly late-fall air slowly crawling over Norman’s stockinged feet.
Norma Normann said, “Make sure the stove’s off, and please, put the big pot in the sink to soak.”
“The big pot’s in the sink to soak, and I promise we’ll all just have one root-beer float each.”
“Please, darling, promise me you’ll all just have one root-beer float each.”
“One root-beer float each, and I know you love me oodles and oodles.”
“Oh, Norman, do you know how much I love you? Oodles and oodles,” said Norma Normann, blowing her son a kiss almost kittenishly and nipping out to the car.
“Bye, Mom, bye, Dad,” said Norman, shutting the door.
“Next time I’ve got to wear my slippers!” announced Norman to his friends as he hurried into the living room.
“All right,” called Emma, through a fistful of buttery popcorn, “place the beloved DVD into the beloved DVD machine and press the revered play.”
“Pressing the revered play,” said Anna.
The large television flickered to life and turned everything in the otherwise-unlit room blue, even the popcorn. The four were in their accustomed places, like senators in a Senate, only here the discussion was sometimes, but not always, more immature. Anna lay on her left side on the sofa, knees tucked up and her head on the armrest; Leonard sat on the floor, with his knees pointing forward and his feet pointing back, as close to the screen as he could get without blocking the others’ view; Emma sprawled in the large leather recliner, tilted back; Norman sat on the back of the sofa, with his feet on the seat cushions, a pose to which his mother, had she been in the room, would have objected. Munching their popcorn, they watched as the credits came on during the overture, displayed like elegant invitations to a grandiose affair. As some of you no doubt know, in the film Fred Astaire and Jane Powell play a brother-and-sister, show-biz couple who, in the first scene, perform the wonderful song-and-dance routine “Ev’ry Night at Seven,” with Fred Astaire’s character, Tom Bowen, playing a king and Jane Powell as his sister, Ellen, playing a housemaid.
“The reason I—” said Norman.
“Shhhhhhhhh!” said the twins.
Norman had violated the first rule when calling for a Royal Wedding, which was that there be no discussion until after this first dance number—in fact, not until Tom and Ellen Bowen’s agent, Irving, says the line “Who’s da square?”
At last, Irving the agent said, “Who’s da square?”
“So,” said Emma, “what’s the hubbub, bub?”
“I’ve called this meeting of the Quadrumvirate—”
“This meeting of the what?” said Anna.
“The Quadrumvirate, noun, a group of four men or, in our case, four human beings,” said Norman.
“Pass me that dictionary,” said Emma, stretching toward Norman, “because I suppose that’s where you got that one from.”
Norman reached down to the end table where the dictionary lay and passed it to her.
“Be my guest. Maybe you’ll find something to help me with my problem. Read the Ss.”
“What’s the problem?” said Anna.
“My dad, of course. He’s traveling too much, I hardly ever see him, he just got back from who knows where last night and I think he’s already leaving who knows when, and when I do see him, I always check to make sure he still has all his fingers. What if something happens to him? I don’t want my dad to be called No Toes Normann or Earless Orman.”
“Or Four Fingers Orman,” Leonard suggested.
“Or just Scarface,” offered Anna.
“Stop!” said Norman. “Thank you, we’ve all got the picture.”
“Shirty,” said Emma.
“What?” said Norman.
“Shirty,” said Emma. “Norman, you’re being shirty, it says so right here in the dictionary. ‘Shirty, adjective, ill-tempered.’ Don’t be so shirty, Norman.”
“Be socky,” said Anna.
“That’s right, say you’re socky, Norman,” said Leonard.
“All right, all right, I’m socky—I mean, I’m sorry,” said Norman. “What I want help with is what to do with my dad. How to save him from the bomber business. Leonard had some good ideas before—thank you, by the way, Leonard, for those. But . . . they didn’t work. We need a new plan. Something that’s a sure bet. Something foolproof.”
“How about we keep him here by, say, breaking both of his legs somehow,” said Leonard. “That way he won’t be able to travel and he’ll lose all of his bomber buyers and have to quit.”
“Shish kebab,” said Emma.
“No, break his legs!” said Leonard. “Not shish kebab.”
“‘Shish kebab! Noun, roast meat broiled on a skewer.’”
“No, no, no, no,” said Anna, standing up on the sofa and twirling once, then jumping lightly onto the ottoman. “No leg breaking. You watch too many spy movies, Leonard, that James Bond stuff doesn’t work in real life. Forget James Bond, it’s time to try the Miss Marple approach, more subtle, more wise. We will consider the psychology of the individual.”
“Shit,” said Emma.
“What?” said Anna.
“‘Shit.’ It’s actually in the dictionary.”
“What do you mean, ‘shit’?” said Norman. “I think Anna might have a good idea.”
“Look. ‘Shit, shat, shitting, shits, verb, to defecate.’”
“Wow,” said Anna, “no shit.”
“I didn’t know you could say ‘shat,’” said Leonard.
“Who knew ‘shit’ has a past tense,” said Anna.
“It also has a history,” said Emma. “‘Shit, noun, from the Old English, shite, usually vulgar, excrement.’”
“Vulgar, oh really?” said Leonard. “I had no idea.”
“That reminds me,” said Anna, sitting down again, “once, our social-studies teacher, Mr. Tattlesmith, was trying to impress us girls or something and he was saying that the word ‘shit’ came from exploding manure on boats, or something, so they stamped ‘Store High In Transit, S.H.I.T.’ on boxes, and that’s how it got its name or something.”
Leonard said, “Sounds like Mr. Tattlesmith is full of—”
“‘Shitten, adjective, covered with excrement,’” said Emma.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” said Leonard.
“What?”
“What do you get if you clean the litter box in your winter clothes?”
“I dunno, what do you get when you clean the litter box in your winter clothes?”
“A shitten kitten mitten.”
“Can we please get back to the subject?” said Norman.
“What? Shish kebabs?” said Anna.
“Why do you want to talk about shish kebabs?” said Leonard.
“My dad!” said Norman.
“Your dad likes shish kebabs?” said Leonard.
“Leonard!” said Norman.
“Norman, don’t be shirty,” said Anna. “And Leonard, please be quiet, and I would appreciate it, Emma, if you would keep your Old English filth to yourself. I was talking about the psychology of the individual. Behavior modification, you know. It works with kindergarteners and it’ll work with Mr. Orman Normann. We have to get him to associate selling bombers with ‘bad’ and selling something else with ‘good,’ see?”
“How do we do that?” said Norman.
“It’s a two-pronged approach,” said Anna.
“You mean we’re going to stick him with a fork?” said Leonard.
“No. Listen. We start with the bad. What doesn’t your father like?”
“Well, besides anything that doesn’t make him a lot of money, um, he doesn’t like being disturbed during a nap. He hates that,” said Norman.
“Good, that’s good,” said Anna.
“No, I said that’s bad. And I thought of something else. He’s always looking for omens, good and bad, he’s kind of superstitious. Like, the first unusual thing he sees in the morning will be a big deal for him. You know, like if he sees a teddy bear being thrown into a garbage truck, or mushrooms popping up in the yard, or if he sees a dog limping. Stuff like that really gets to him.”
“Very, very good. Now, we just need to figure out some way to use this,” said Anna.
“Shock therapy,” said Emma.
“What?” said Anna.
“‘Shock therapy, noun, applying a strong jolt to a person or system in order to change unwanted behavior.’”
“You mean . . .” said Leonard.
“Yes,” said Anna. “Here’s what we do.”
“Wait, wait,” said Emma. “Fred is about to dance with the hat stand.”
“All right,” said Norman, “we’ll watch the hat-stand routine.”
When Fred Astaire was done dancing with the hat stand and several other inanimate objects, Anna continued: “Here’s what we do. We start by lulling your dad to sleep.”
“Not hard to do,” said Norman. “Just put him on any couch and turn the TV on for two minutes.”
“Okay, that’ll do nicely. Now we need to insert bombers into the situation.”
“A war movie!” said Leonard.
“My dad has tons of them!” said Norman.
“Yes!” said Anna. “Then the last thing he sees before he falls asleep will be bombers, and then he’ll dream about bombers. And then, when he’s sound asleep, really asleep, happily dreaming about bombers, we pop three balloons right next to his ear.”
